What's a client worth???

On Friday November 3rd we held our annual company party. It was well attended and everyone had a great time. Well, everyone, but the caterer. My brother Kyle arranged to have one of the leading caterers in Kansas City provide food and service for our party. I was very excited because I knew this caterer provided great food and the people had always been fun.

Our party was in a cave for a bunch of working people. We were to have cocktails and appetizers from 5 - 6 and then dinner at 6 PM.

NONE of the food showed up until after 6:10 PM.

I started out saying to never judge a book by its cover... yes Mail Print is in a cave and the people employed here are hard working country people . My brother and I book catering over 12 times a year for Mail Print and various other functions both personal and professional. We throw great parties and we love planning them.

The event was great, no one realized the extend of the problems, but I knew everything that was going on. It's really too bad. I had so wanted to just have a caterer that I could call on to take care of my events and now I have to find someone else.

Well, back to the topic of this post... Never judge a book by it's cover... I'm sure you've heard this before, but with the fluctuations in the market and the challenges ahead with the real estate "bubble" it is never more true than it is today. We have to treat every customer as if they are worth a ton of money because they are.

If you don't know the Lifetime Value of YOUR average client then sit down and figure it out. I'll help a bit...

Homeowners generally move every 5-7 years and with that in mind will own about 5 homes
Commission on First Transaction =
Commission on One One Referral Per Year for the REST of your career =
Commission on First Home At Time of Sale =
Commission on Second Home at Time of Purchase =
Commission on Second Home at Time of Sale =

Etc... (And don't forget home prices generally go up so your commission with each transaction goes up.)

Take the time and figure it out for yourself, then plan your marketing activity accordingly. Take care of those clients because they are worth a ton of money to you! And, I know you know this one... "If we don't take care of the client, someone else will."

I did a little math for my caterer. It ends up that in the next 12 months that caterer directly lost over $55,000 in sales and that is just 12 months and doesn't count the referrals that I would have shared with my friends and contacts.